


Two - The Reid Effect

by kineticstars



Series: Because I’m Weird [2]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Ableism, Autism, Autistic Spencer Reid, Canon Autistic Character, Gen, Spencer Reid is Autistic, asperger’s, autistic headcanon, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:42:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26949169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kineticstars/pseuds/kineticstars
Summary: Spencer Reid has always known his brain worked differently. He just didn’t know why.
Series: Because I’m Weird [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965400
Comments: 12
Kudos: 206





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The story of Reid finding out he’s autistic.
> 
> The prologue are moments from Reid’s childhood. The first chapter is moments from seasons 1-3, and the final chapter is set during the s6 episode ‘Corazon’ to a little after ‘Coda’. The epilogue is set during/after s8e3. I’ve written most of the chapters but they’ll be posted over the next few days. This is the prologue. 
> 
> I’m not autistic so if there’s anything inaccurate please tell me in the comments. And if I did something right tell me too!

There were two ways for people to be different. There was the acceptable way, and there was the unacceptable way. And the acceptable way always covered over the unacceptable way. 

Spencer Reid didn’t start speaking until he was four years old.   
That was unacceptable. 

But he had been reading novels since he was two.   
That was acceptable. 

“He’s waiting until he’s read everything, then he’ll shock us with his genius,” William said when people asked why his son always had his face buried in a book but never said a word. 

When Spencer did speak, it seemed like only he understood what he was talking about. He would repeat lines from books and TV shows, and sometimes things other people said.   
That was unacceptable. 

Diana tried to engage in conversation with him, and that helped a little bit. He had a large vocabulary for a four year old.   
That was acceptable. 

When Spencer was entering preschool, he could barely hold a pencil. He was clumsy, always running into things.   
That was unacceptable. 

But he liked chess, and was even better than most adults he played against.   
That was acceptable. 

But not to William. 

William put Spencer in little league to ‘improve his coordination’, but it was really to make him seem normal. He was a little boy and little boys were supposed to like sports, not chess. 

Because it seemed like for every different thing Spencer did that was acceptable, there was another different thing that was unacceptable. 

It was after his family moved and he went to a new school when acceptable and unacceptable became one and the same, and everything got him bullied by the other kids. He was still acceptable to adults until the sound of the intercom sent him into a panic every morning, screaming and flailing his arms and trying to hide.   
That was unacceptable. 

One of his teachers recommended he get tested for what was then called Asperger’s Syndrome, but William insisted Spencer was too smart to have that. He wanted to keep it covered over, and he tried harder to make Spencer ‘normal’, but word got around.

People came up with a new, not very nice word for unacceptable. It made William angry.   
Spencer learned very early on that being thought of that way was very, very unacceptable. 

But he didn’t know any other way to be.

Then Diana started to act in a way that was unacceptable, and William wondered how he’d ended up with a family like this. He couldn’t take it anymore, so he left. And it didn’t help that his son’s response was some statistic about broken families. 

Maybe it was good his dad left. Spencer’s mom didn’t care about the unacceptable things Spencer did. She would give him books the students in her classes read. One year she bought him an encyclopedia, and he read it in one night and babbled on and on about the areas of cities and different holidays and history. 

That didn’t last long, because Diana got worse. She’d signed off for Spencer to skip a few grades and he was just about to start high school. Everything was going well. And then it wasn’t, and his mom got even worse, and Spencer didn’t know what to do about it. 

No one took the bullying seriously because he was smart and smart kids got bullied, and at least he made the school look good. 

The acceptable always covered over the unacceptable. 

He went to college at twelve and his teachers loved him. 

At eighteen, he got help for his mom. And trying to help her meant he had to learn more about the human mind, and how people worked. He had never really understood that. He was so intrigued that he decided to become an FBI profiler. And the acceptable covered over the unacceptable there, too. 

He failed all of his physical training. Unacceptable. 

He couldn’t shoot accurately, and he hated the sound the gun made when it fired. Unacceptable. 

But he knew ‘everything about everything’, as his unit chief said. Which was acceptable.


	2. 1-3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moments in seasons 1-3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuation of the story of Reid discovering he’s autistic! These are basically notable moments in the first 3 seasons (Can we talk about how Reid was so heavily autistic coded in the beginning. It’s a shame it was never confirmed in the series).
> 
> Most if not all of the dialogue was actually said in certain episodes although they aren’t direct quotes, just my memory, so credit to the cm writers for that. This is the first official chapter, the previous one was the prologue. 
> 
> I’m not autistic so if there’s anything inaccurate please let me know, and let me know what I did well too! Enjoy :)

“We call it the Reid Effect. It’s common in children,” his unit chief, Aaron Hotchner, said with a small smile.

After being in the BAU for a while, Spencer’s team members got used to the different things about him. They treated him like he wasn’t different. And yet he still took it so personally when they would laugh when he flinched at loud noises or people touching him or said he didn’t like something that he shouldn’t be bothered by. They came up with a nice name for it: The Reid Effect, and this time a dog barking had triggered it.

He knew it was just another term for the unacceptable things he did.

***

Reid had read the entire DSM-IV multiple times (and some of the earlier DSMs just for fun). So it surprised him when the unsub said that Gideon was ‘unable to diagnose the autistic leanings of the very insecure Dr. Spencer Reid.’ A confused look fell upon his face for half a second and he glanced at Gideon, trying to gage his reaction.

Gideon laughed.

A clear memory flashed across Spencer’s mind, of him overhearing his teacher suggesting he be evaluated for Asperger’s Syndrome. He knew doctors had been debating whether or not Asperger’s was on the autism spectrum...

But Gideon had dismissed the comment as soon as it came, so Spencer did the same.

***

One of the reasons Reid was so interested in profiling was because it helped him understand other people. It was like a dictionary for humanity. _Looking off to the side-Lying, uncertainty, hiding something_ He’d noticed the suspect doing this. His daughter’s adoptive family had been murdered, and he was lying about his relationship with her. At least, that’s what Spencer thought. Nonverbal social cues were the hard part for him. Taking directly to the suspect would be easier.

“Where were y—“ Spencer began to say, before the suspect interrupted him.

“If you’re going to talk to me, look me in the eye,” he said. Spencer paused. People had mentioned how Spencer rarely made direct eye contact, but few people _demanded_ it of him. But...It couldn’t be that hard, could it?

Spencer looked down, then met the man’s eye for a split second before returning his gaze to, well, anywhere but the suspect’s face. “You want to ask me a question, then you look me in the eye, boy!” The man yelled, slamming his handcuffed fists on the table in front of him.

Spencer drew back, distancing himself from the man across from him. Then he took a deep breath, and stared into the suspect’s eyes, ignoring the discomfort it caused him. He added a new term to his dictionary. _Avoiding eye contact-lacking confidence, unprofessional, uncertainty, insecurity_

***

Gideon had been gone for a few weeks now, and his replacement was arriving today. Spencer had read everything he could about him; David Rossi, writer and retired profiler who was coming back into the field. He’d read all his books, interviews, and papers. _Last name Rossi, indicating Italian ancestry. Dedicated one of his books to a ‘Father William’, suggesting he is Catholic and fairly invested in his faith_. He thought about everything he knew about the man, and, realizing they had almost nothing in common, decided that when they met, he would talk about Rossi’s previous FBI work instead.

Rossi simply gave Reid the same looks other people did when he rambled. And he’d tried talking to Rossi several times after their first meeting, asking him about his books and writing process. Still, the older man would either cut him off or ignore him, glancing at whoever else was in the room like whatever made talking to Spencer so unappealing was an inside joke he didn’t get.

Spencer was often confused when people interrupted him while he was speaking or gave him odd looks when he described things. He told Garcia this (she was the only one who never made fun of him or gave those looks).

“Maybe you should try being more conversational? I mean, I’m smart, but sometimes you sound like a walking encyclopedia, Boy Genius. And by sometimes I mean...basically all the time. It’s kinda scary.”

So he resolved to be more conversational.

On a case a month or so later, it seemed the unsub’s signature was removing the eyes from his victims. Prentiss had asked how many sadists enucleated their victims. Reid had responded with the statistic, and was about to state how many people who enucleated their victims kept the eyes as trophies, but he stopped himself. The round table was quiet for a beat, before Prentiss said:

“What, no statistic for that one?”

Reid pursued his lips. “6%. I...I’m trying to be more conversational.”

Emily mirrored his expression, her lips perking up into a small smile. “It’s not working.” He looked down at his lap, fidgeting with the pencil in his hand, trying to forget his latest seemingly unsuccessful interaction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something I was a bit unsure about in this chapter was describing Reid interpreting social cues as if they were in a dictionary. The reason I included that was because several times in the show Reid has described what people are doing that way, even if he knows them, as if he’s profiling them. For instance in an episode where Reid was talking to Emily he said something along the lines of ‘I noticed you’re biting your nails, that means you’re stressed’ and a couple other times too...hopefully that’s not offensive in any way? Again I’m not autistic (but I do have adhd) so if anything’s inaccurate let me know!


	3. For Your Consideration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Events leading Reid to pursue an autism diagnosis. Essentially, how I think season 6 should have gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter in the story of Reid learning he’s autistic!
> 
> The events in this chapter happen in or around s6e12 and s6e16. Most of the dialogue is from the episodes but I was too lazy to find direct quotes. Credit to the cm writers all the same. I wrote this at midnight so I have no idea if it makes sense. Epilogue is next.
> 
> I’m not autistic, so please tell me if I did anything wrong, and if I did something right! Enjoy

The only reasonable explanation he could come up with was schizophrenia. 

It didn’t make any sense, really. There wasn’t any correlation between the onset of schizophrenia and light sensitive headaches. Or maybe there was, Spencer didn’t know. He could barely think straight. 

The entire couple of days was a blur. Both literally and figuratively; Spencer could barely see anything, and the days melted into one chunk of time characterized by pain. 

He’d brought sunglasses with him on the case and tried not to make his discomfort seem obvious. His team noticed anyway. 

He was unusually silent, he hadn’t read the book he brought with him for the flight, and he’d isolated himself. 

One of the men they’d interviewed picked up on it almost immediately, giving Spencer a talisman and saying that ghosts were causing his headaches. 

When Hotch asked, Spencer said he’d only pretended to have a headache. 

Later on he vanished into the building across from a crime scene, throwing off his bulletproof vest and rocking back and forth, bouncing his leg and rubbing his eyes, willing the pain to go away. 

When he’d confronted the unsub he complained that the room was too bright, not realizing that his headache was worsened by the sound of the victim yelling in the background, not the lights. 

Ghosts being the cause of his headaches honestly made more sense to Spencer than the actual tests results, which came back inconclusive. The pain he’d endured for three days was supposedly psychosomatic. His headaches appeared to have no cause. 

He couldn’t accept that explanation. He’d yelled something at the doctor, he couldn’t remember, and stormed out of the building. For the first time in his life, there was something Spencer Reid didn’t understand. 

He’d decided to figure out his problem by himself. A few days later, Spencer bought a book on migraines and would read it on the train ride to work. 

He didn’t know why he even bothered bringing it with him when he woke up with an unfortunately familiar pain behind his eyes. 

He sighed, put on his sunglasses, and headed out to greet the day. 

Having the sunglasses on actually seemed to help, and while his head definitely still hurt when he got to Quantico, he felt comfortable enough to take them off. Still, at the back of his mind he ruminated on what could be causing his migraines, paying partial attention to Garcia presenting the case at the front of the room.   
-  
Whenever Spencer found himself rambling, he wasn’t exactly sure what caused him to start. He went into his own world, reaching into the crevices of his brain for one more fact, oblivious to the things outside his mind. He was currently talking about Doctor Who and comparing it to Bill and Ted. He was pretty sure he was talking to Seaver, but who he was talking to was irrelevant. All he knew was that he was talking about something exciting to him, and he wasn’t going to stop.   
“I’m sorry,” Seaver said, reaching around Spencer to grab her coffee.   
He blinked absently, breaking out of his trance. “For what?”  
“Asking.”   
-  
The son of the victims was a young boy named Sammy, and he was autistic. 

The team was discussing the nature of the case, wondering why the boy had gone off to school despite something being wrong. Spencer knew autism didn’t impact overall intelligence unless coupled with an intellectual disability. Sammy must have known something was wrong, so why did he still go to school?  
“Autistic children tend to like sticking to a routine. Sammy knew that whenever it reached a certain time, he had to go to school. It didn’t matter what else happened,” Reid said. He noticed Seaver giving him a sidelong glance and wondered absently what that could be about.   
“I hate to say it, guys, but what if Sammy’s the unsub?” she suggested.   
Reid wanted to interject and explain that just because someone was different, it didn’t mean they were stupid or violent. But it seemed clear to him that Seaver wasn’t too keen on him speaking today, so he kept it to himself.   
-  
Sammy was rocking back and forth on the couch in the police station, moaning as he did so, all in response to someone touching him. This reaction surprised everyone in the room, and reminded Spencer of his own aversion to touch. It wasn’t quite as strong as Sammy’s, but he definitely understood how the boy was feeling and took note of it. Spencer thought maybe he could use this connection as a way to get through to him.   
“Some autistic children don’t like being touched,” Rossi explained. Maybe he imagined it, but Spencer was sure he caught Rossi looking at him as he said that. 

Rossi and Reid had gone to Sammy’s school, talking to the teachers and asking about his interactions with his classmates. The school didn’t have special ed classes, so the principal was responsible for Sammy’s accommodations. He was in classes with the general student population but did well as long as he stuck to a strict routine. “As you can imagine, he doesn’t have many friends. We haven’t figured out how to make him speak more, although sometimes he communicates by drawing patterns on sheets of paper.” 

“That could be helpful for us. You know, many autistic people’s brains have better pattern recognition skills than ours,” Reid said while they left the school. He looking at his feet while walking down the steps, counting them in the back of his mind as he went along. He spent about ten minutes connecting this statement with other facts and statistics, although Rossi ignored him after the first five.   
-  
Back at the police station, Rossi suggested that Reid talk to Sammy, while Rossi met with the rest of the team to confer with Garcia. 

Sammy was sitting next to his aunt, if it could really be called sitting next to her. Sammy was alone on the couch, with the middle aged woman sitting in a separate chair, craning her neck to see what the boy was drawing. She was his legal guardian until his parents were found. Spencer ignored her and instead knelt in front of Sammy, making sure to keep a good distance. 

“Hi, Sammy,” he said. “I’m Dr. Spencer Reid. I work for the FBI, and I’m helping the police find your parents.” 

Sammy didn’t respond, simply kept drawing. 

Reid peered at the boy’s paper, looking at the various multicolored ‘L’s that covered the paper. Spencer reached over to point to the letters, and Sammy tensed, apparently believing Spencer was going to touch him.   
“It’s alright, Sammy. I’m not going to touch you. I don’t really like being touched either,” he said.   
Sammy seemed to relax at this.   
“Sammy, can you tell me what L means? Who is L?” Reid asked. 

Sammy didn’t respond.   
_  
The other BAU members thought taking Sammy back to the scene of the crime might jump start his memory. It didn’t seem to; all he did was head straight for the piano in the living room. No one knew what to say. They were tentative around him, as if saying or doing the wrong thing —or anything—could trigger a violent reaction. 

Eventually, Spencer approached Sammy, with the others watching intensely as if the interaction was a broadway performance. 

Spencer stood next to the stool Sammy was sitting on. “Is it ok if I sit next to you?” he asked, placing a hand on the stool. The boy hesitated for a second before nodding tersely. Reid sat down slowly, watching as Sammy’s fingers began to move across the keys. He watched in amazement, as did the rest of the room. Spencer took in every keystroke, every movement of Sammy’s fingers across the ivory colored keys, then he joined in. He started out slowly at first, testing how the keys felt under his fingers. Spencer watched Sammy’s hands move a little more before he sped up, becoming more and more in sync with Sammy.   
“I didn’t know you could play,” Morgan remarked.  
“I didn’t either. But it’s just math, really,” Spencer said. 

By the end of the day, Sammy’s mother was found. Unfortunately, the unsub and Sammy’s father had lost their lives. Despite this, it seemed like something amazing happened. Sammy hugged his mother for the first time. And for a reason no one could explain, all credit for the outcome of this case rested with Reid. 

On the plane ride back home, Spencer couldn’t concentrate on the book he had open in front of him. Instead, he was thinking about Sammy. He *understood* him. Other people made fun of him for not liking touch or change, but it wasn’t like that with Sammy. Sammy was like him.

Spencer told himself that was silly. He was relating to a *kid*And yet he couldn’t stop thinking about how he connected to Sammy in a way he’d never connected to anyone before, and he thought about his childhood. 

He thought about how he was, the things people said to him, Asperger’s, his headaches. Facts floated around his mind, building bridges between each other and his life and today. And he wasn’t quite sure why or how, but he realized that maybe, just maybe, he was more like Sammy than he thought. 

Spencer dove into reading and research as soon as he got home, and found articles, life stories, and videos of people describing their experiences with autism. Seeing a list of symptoms in the DSM hadn’t resonated with Reid. The traits of Asperger’s and ASD seemed normal to him, so he hadn’t put much thought into it. He’d spent his whole life worried about schizophrenia, anyway, so autism never seriously crossed his mind. But seeing how those things manifested, and really understanding what autism and being on a spectrum meant...he saw himself. It would explain so much. Being autistic even gave him a possible explanation for his headaches: they could be a manifestation of sensory overload, made worse by light and noise. Oddly enough, even things he did that didn’t seem related to autism were actually part of it, like his persistent clumsiness and tangents about things he was interested in. 

He had found his possible answer. Now all he need was to do something about it. 

He scheduled an appointment with a psychiatrist. It was difficult to find someone who specialized in diagnosis ASD in adults, but he managed to find someone willing to evaluate him. Seeing a psychiatrist also meant he could rule out the onset of schizophrenia. Spencer described his job, his personal life, his childhood. He mentioned the suggestion he be evaluated as a kid that his father hurriedly brushed under the rug. He filled out a questionnaire. The appointment lasted for a little over an hour, but it felt like much less. Spencer was speaking to the second person in the span of a week who seemed to understand him and didn’t judge him for how he was.

He was autistic. 

Spencer Reid, who know for so long that his brain worked differently, now knew why. He was autistic, and there was nothing wrong with that. Being autistic had gone from being unacceptable when he was a kid to embraced, perfectly acceptable. 

Yet for some reason, he wasn’t ready to tell the team. 

As nice as they were, they made fun of his quirks. They jokingly said he should just be ‘normal’. And he wasn’t the best at recognizing when people were joking, so those comments confused him. They hurt. Even when he knew they were jokes, they made him feel different and less than, like the team didn’t like Spencer for who he was but only valued his intelligence. 

They made him feel unacceptable. 

He feared that the people he was closest to, and the nearest he had to family, wouldn’t accept him.

He wasn’t ready to tell them. 

But that was fine for a while, because Spencer could finally accept that he didn’t need to change for anyone. He didn’t need to try and be more this or more that. 

He was Spencer Reid, and he was autistic, and that was perfectly acceptable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to keep Sammy’s behaviors as close to how they we’re portrayed in the episode, which was eh. I have a love/hate relationship with ‘Coda’ (Seaver was an ableist piece of garbage, yikes) but I guess it gets a few points for effort. I saw some tumblr posts saying Reid’s experience in ‘corazon’ looked almost exactly like sensory overload, and we never got an actual explanation for his headaches...so I took that headcanon and ran with it. Season 6 was set up so perfectly for Reid’s autism to be confirmed but nooo, the cm writers would never. 
> 
> I have no idea how an autism evaluation works and all the resources on the Internet were for parents *sigh* so I had to wing it, hopefully it makes sense?? 
> 
> Also I noticed I haven’t described Reid stimming in this story yet. I’ve already written the epilogue but I may edit it to include that :)


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reid talks to someone he trusts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter in Reid’s story, in which he decides to tell a member of the team he is autistic. 
> 
> Set during/after s8e3. I actually did find direct quotes this time, so credit to the CM writers for all the lines said between Reid and Blake. 
> 
> I’m not autistic, so please tell me if anything is inaccurate or offensive. Please tell me what I did right, too. Enjoy!

Reid had been officially diagnosed for about a year now, and he still hadn’t told the team.

It wasn’t like it mattered; everything about him was still exactly the same. He doubted the way the team treated him would change much if they knew, anyway. They still gave him weird looks when he rambled, chuckled to themselves when he didn’t understand a joke, and made fun of him for his lack of physical capability. Really, knowing he was autistic simply made his traits seem less like a vague, formless _thing_ that was wrong and bothered people to something he knew wasn’t wrong and didn’t need to be changed.

But it still bothered people.

He was kind of shoehorned into telling the team when he learned one of the victims, a young boy named Braden, had recently been diagnosed with Asperger’s. When Hotch revealed this, it seemed like everyone was expecting Spencer to spew out a string of facts and statistics. And he did. He chose his words carefully as he explained:

“Braden certainly would be vulnerable. Unlike classic autism, language ability is intact in people with Asperger's. They appear to lack empathy and have trouble reading social cues. Albert Einstein supposedly had it, as do some well-known Silicon Valley types.”

Spencer stopped himself from going on a tangent, looking out the window and continuing the explanation in his head. He’d said ‘appear to lack empathy’ instead of ‘lack empathy’ because that assumption was false, and connoted that autistic people didn’t have emotions, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Spencer was probably the most emotional member of the team, ’ _and many people with Asperger’s have hyper empathy, meaning they experience emotions more intensely than others. The assumption autistic people lack empathy is due to alexithymia. We can feel and empathize, but some of us have a hard time expressing or understanding what we or others are feeling..._ ’

“Well, how about you?”

Spencer’s thoughts stopped in their tracks. Blake’s question caught him off guard, and the only response he could offer up was a quiet “What’s that?” He watched as JJ raised her eyebrows, Rossi chuckled, and Hotch smiled. Once again it seemed like they were in on an inside joke that he didn’t get, and the joke was him. Spencer tried to put it out of his mind, returning to staring out the window and shifting gears to think about something else instead.

He’d thought the Asperger’s conversation would end as soon as it started, just like all the others times in the past when him being autistic was implied. Reid had even forgot about it himself.

Blake, however, hadn’t let it go.

They were together in the one of the families homes, investigating the son’s room. Spencer had absently mentioned how he’d made a model solar system out of salt when he was a kid, and Blake paused and smiled at him.

“You know, by the way, no offense earlier when I suggested you had Asperger's.”

Reid looked at her, changing his body language to seem like the comment didn’t affect him. “None taken.” He glanced at the ground and put his hands in his pockets. “When did you do that?”

Blake visibly relaxed, her smile widening. “Ah... , and that's what I love about you. You're not overly sensitive like some people.”

Spencer pursed his lips and looked off to the side.

She continued, “I mean, think about how much time we'd save if everyone just got straight to the point.”

Spencer gave up on trying to feign cluelessness or distance himself from the label. He considered telling Blake, but...no, that wasn’t fair. He’d only known her for a few months, whereas he’d known the rest of the team for years and even they didn’t know. So he formulated the best neutral response he could come up with.

“Yeah. Cut out all the handshakes and how-do-you-dos.”

Blake nodded. “Yeah.”

Then she returned back to investigating the scene.

—

They returned back to Quantico, and everyone else had headed home. The only people left were Spencer, who was finishing up at his desk, and Hotch, who was up in his office. Reid liked Hotch. In fact, he and Garcia were the only two people who were respectful when it came to his differences, most of the time. He could trust Hotch, right?

_Tell him tell him tell him tell him_.

Spencer stood, staring up at his unit chief, debating whether or not Hotch should know. If he told him, what if it jeopardized his place on the team? Or Hotch pitied him and started treating him like a child? Or—

_Just tell him_.

Reid took a deep breath and walked up to Hotch’s office, hesitating before knocking on the door. “It’s open,” Hotch responded from inside.

Reid walked in, standing in the doorway, hands in his pockets. He didn’t know what to say. There was awkward silence for a second before Hotch looked up from his paperwork.

“Oh, Reid. You’re here later than usual. Is something wrong?”

“No, I...” Spencer cleared his throat. “I just wanted to know how Braden was doing. If you know. It’s fine if you don’t. Actually, I don’t expect you to. Statistically only 4% of people in law enforcement keep in contact wi—“

“Reid, it’s alright. I spoke to the deputy after we landed. Braden’s a bit shaken up—his whole family is. But otherwise he’s fine.”

“That’s...that’s good.” He pursed his lips. “D-did you know that about 1% of the population is on the autism spectrum? And that only 1/4 of children on the spectrum end up getting diagnosed.That means the other 75% go their whole lives not knowing, or get diagnosed in adulthood. And...”

He stopped and took a breath. Hotch was looking at him, waiting for him to continue.

“And I’m one of them. I mean, one of the people who wasn’t diagnosed as a kid. The 75%...one of the ones that got diagnosed in adulthood.”

Hotch didn’t say anything.

“What I’m saying is...I’m autistic.”

Hotch nodded slowly. “Okay, thank you for telling me.” He put down the pen he had been writing with when Reid came in, folding his hands across his desk. “When did you find out?”

“Uh...a little under a year ago. After the case with Sammy Sparks, I did some digging...”

Hotch raised a hand, signaling for Spencer to stop. “A year ago? Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I didn’t know how you would react.” Spencer looked at his feet. “Are you mad at me?”

Hotch sighed. “No, of course not. Of course not. I just wish you’d told me earlier.”

“I’m sorry...I just didn’t know how you’d react. I didn’t want the team treating me differently...”

“Reid.”

Spencer looked back up at Hotch.

“It doesn’t change anything. You’re the same Reid before as you are now. You’re autistic, and you always have been. Only now, the team and I can learn how to help you.”

“I don’t need help. It’s fine.”

“Alright.” Hotch paused.“I’m glad you told me. But you do realize you’re going to have to tell the rest of the team eventually, right?”

“Yeah...”

“Do you want me to tell them?”

“I...no. I don’t know. Not yet. I’ll tell them soon.”

“Okay, whenever you’re ready.”

“Yeah. That’s...all I had to say to you. Good night, Hotch.”

“Good night.”

Reid began to leave.

“And Spencer?”

“Yes sir?”

Hotch smiled fondly. “Thank you for telling me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 8x3 always annoyed me for the Asperger’s conversation. It cost the writers $0 to actually say Reid is autistic in the show instead of playing with it like its a joke. I myself am not autistic, but I do have adhd and seeing Spencer as someone who’s heavily implied to be neurodivergent means so much. Even if it’s not really canon, I write these fics because there’s barely any nd rep out there, and no adhd rep. Literally all the Spencer I write is going to be autistic Spence, because he’s the closest character I’ve seen to someone like me. 
> 
> Anyway, hope you all enjoyed this story! I have some other fics in the vault including Reid’s telling the rest of the team he’s autistic and Rossi’s response, let me know if you want those posted!


End file.
